Worth Living
by Katrina S. Forest
Summary: Greed manages to survive his battle with Ed... and how the rest of the 1st anime gets messed up from there
1. Chapter 1

Summary: Greed manages to survive his battle with Ed and how the rest of the FMA story gets messed up from there.

a/n: I am currently posting this story one chapter ahead on my DeviantArt account. See my profile for the link.

Chapter 1:

There were two things in life that Greed absolutely could not stand. One was being penniless, the other was being powerless. And now he was both.

In a roundabout way, he could blame Martel. If it hadn't been for her, he would have been dead by now. Well, he couldn't totally blame her, she was just trying to return his favor, after all. It was just that she didn't understand that his continuing to live was no longer a favor. He wouldn't have gone back to that witch Dante's mansion if he wanted to live. He was a loose end for her, far too unpredictable to be an ally. She wanted him out of the picture. He didn't mind exiting, as long as it was dramatic. To him, a life with nothing was worth nothing.

But Martel was feistier than he gave her credit for. Instead of being able to contain her, Alphonse accidentally let her escape, which of course, led to her careening right into the middle of his battle with the Full Metal runt, and stopping him from dealing what would have been the fatal blow. What was he going to say? "No, don't stop him, I want to die?" If he had the gall to say that, he would have said it to Dorochet and Roa before they put themselves between himself and Gluttony. Maybe it came down to cowardice. But as before, the only thing he could think of to do while Martel was desperately trying to restrain Edward was run. Run and leave her behind.

So here he was underneath a towering tree in the middle of he-had-no-idea-where, having already coughed up the stones which would allow him to regenerate as he demonstrated to Alphonse. All it would take would be a single blow to the head, or maybe the chest, and he would die like any normal person would. He hated that thought most of all. Being a homunculus meant having power, didn't it? What was it worth now? In theory, his shield should still have worked, but after all the running and sheer disgust with himself, he didn't know if he had the energy to activate it. And on top of everything else, his glasses were broken.

As he lay on the ground and closed his eyes, a shadow passed over his face. Don't tell me it's going to rain now, he thought. When he looked, however, he saw no clouds, but a small girl who appeared to be about five or six years old. She wore a simple blue dress, tattered at the edges, and her long dark hair fell around her face in tangled clumps.

"Hey, mister, are you okay?" she asked. Greed groaned in response. A five-year-old just asked if he was okay. Couldn't sink much lower than that.

"No," he admitted with a smile. He figured this would make the girl go away, but instead she stood and stared at him for a few minutes. Then, of all things, she crossed her legs and plopped down next to him.

"Hey, no one invited you to sit," Greed said.

Still, the girl didn't answer. She stared off into the distance, as if she hadn't heard him at all. After a few minutes of complete silence, she finally piped up.

"I'm hungry. Are you hungry, mister?"

Greed could not resist a laugh. He wondered how Gluttony would respond to a question like that.

"I don't eat regular food," he finally told her.

She looked disappointed. "What do you eat?" she wanted to know.

Greed thought about that one for a moment. "It's a red stone," he explained. "But it's hard to find."

The little girl nodded. "I know where I can find red stones. I'll get some and bring them to you."

Greed laughed again. Why did Dante need the Fullmetal punk when she had such an obviously helpful servant right here?

"Whatever you want," Greed said with a snicker.

His young conversationalist looked annoyed. "I will, you'll see!" she insisted, standing up. "I'll bring them here first thing tomorrow, okay?" Greed didn't answer that one, yet she took off over the hilltop like she'd been sent on a mission. In some ways, he felt a bit grateful for her visit, even if it did humiliate him. If nothing else, she provided a final amusement before he died.

#

Meanwhile, Martel was having some issues of her own. Trying to stop Ed from executing his final blow against Greed was not without painful consequences. Currently Alphonse was busily playing doctor both to his irrational older brother and his unconventional new friend.

"You're so quick to attack people," he said to Edward.

His brother looked insulted. "Who's attacking who?" he complained, pointing to Martel, who had a bandage would tightly around her upper arm. "That girl just jumped out and grabbed me!"

"You were about to kill Greed," she spat at him.

"Who just murdered an innocent old woman!" Ed yelled back.

"Runt," Martel muttered under her breath. For having only known him for the past five minutes, she certainly knew how to hit his weak spot.

"Whose only excuse for being so small is that he must have been transmuted with a bacterium, you lousy jerk!" Ed cried in a fit of rage.

"She didn't say that," Alphonse sighed, though he wouldn't blame her if she had. Suddenly Ed remembered his own injury and cringed in pain, decided that it was better to rest for a little bit before flailing his arms about in anger.

"Anyways," Al went on. "I'm not so sure Greed is the one who killed Dante." He pointed over to the strange transmutation circle etched into the floor of the old room. He hadn't quite seen anything like it before, expect maybe in some of his old books. It was a pattern designed to drain energy, and the object it was to act on was sitting in a pile of broken pieces and dust in the center. Al walked over to the pile and picked up a small gray piece of material.

"Brother, what does this look like to you?" he asked.

Ed skeptically took the piece of Al's hand and examined it. He was almost ready to pass it off as nothing until his trained eyes caught a second glimpse. Unfortunately, he knew all too well what he was holding a sliver of in his hand.

"This is a piece of a human bone!"


	2. Chapter 2

Summary: Greed manages to survive his battle with Ed and how the rest of the FMA story gets messed up from there.

a/n: I am currently posting this story one chapter ahead on my DeviantArt account. See my profile for the link.

Chapter 2:

Much to Greed's surprise, the little girl was actually back the next day. She did have, as promised, a rather interesting assortment of red rocks, as if she'd been collecting them for years. Some of them more resembled beach glass than anything else, with a translucent-reflective surface, while others were dull and crumbling like desert stone. Among the collection, however, was the very last thing Greed expected to see.

"Is…?" He almost chocked with anticipation when he saw it. Even though it did not make any sense why a child had a hold of it, it didn't matter. He snatched it greedily fro her hand and swallowed it without chewing, like a hungry beggar being shown a loaf of bread. The girl seemed surprised at him reaction, but didn't turn away. The taste of the stone was sour, it was not the genuine article. But even a fake Philosopher's Stone tasted sweet right now. He eyed the little girl, who looked very pleased with herself.

"My name's Mika," she said cheerfully. "What's yours?" Greed didn't answer. He savored the stone's flavor on his tongue, feeling a bit of his energy returning to him.

"Can you get more of that stuff, kid?" he asked her. Mika looked hesitant.

"I… I think so," she said. She turned and pointed down the road. "It's from my village up there…" she began.

"I don't care about details," greed interrupted her. "Just go get some more, got it?" Mika looked throughly disappointed, but nevertheless, stood up and began heading in the direction she had pointed. Greed watched emotionless as she walked away.

Several hours later, she had still not returned.

#

"Miss Martel, where exactly are we going?" Al's voice nervously rounded a sandy corner. Martel seemed to move comfortably through the desert. Like the serpent inside her, she could practically glide through. Edward and Alphonse on the other hand…

"Hey, no one invited you to follow me!" she snapped back. "If you can't keep up,then go get yourselves lost! I could care less."

As he contemplated his reply, Ed struggled to pull Al up from at least the fourth pit he had slipped into. "Hey, don't get cocky!" he yelled. "Could've killed you right there if I had the…"

"I think all Ed is wondering…" Al interrupted. "Is what your goal is, now that Greed's disappeared." Martel did not answer Al's question right away. Instead, she found herself a cozy spot on a study peak of rock and glanced across the isolated countryside.

"There's no point in searching for Dorochet and Roa," she quietly. "I know their fate full well. But Greed might still be alive. So I'll continue in my duty to protect him. I'll search until I find him." At this, she jumped down from her perch, causing Ed to giggle ever-so-subtly.

"That so? Well, don't you think you're rather doing a bad job, considering you're dragging along the guy who nearly killed him.

"Considering the inures you've incurred already," Martel asked coyly. "Don't you think you're doing a bad job of self-protection by following the ally of the person you tried to kill?"

To this, Ed shrugged indifferently. "Greed's a criminal, nothing more. I'm part of the military, it's my job to bring him to justice."

"Justice?" Martel hissed. Whatever anger she had been withholding from Ed, he had just crossed a delicate line. Her body lurched slightly backwards, alluring* to its inhuman abilities. "Your 'justice' took my humanity, my dignity, and fourteen years of my life," she spat. "And if your only intention is harm to the person who rescued me from all that, then I'm afraid here is where we part ways."

Even before she had completed her sentence, Martel dug her hand into the ground and threw it up quickly. As the resulting cloud of sand distracted her followers, she took off running. Ed made a valiant attempt to follow, but the wind of sand she created was hard to get through. Unaffected by the hazard of inhaling sand into his lungs, Al struggled to see what was happening. A normal person would be taking large strides to get across. But Martel looked like she was gliding across ice.

"We won't catch her now," he observed.

"You want a bet?" Ed grunted, clapping his hands together and preparing to transmute the ground beneath them. Al, however, grabbed his arm before he had a chance to fulfill his intentions.

"Let her go," he urged. "She's not going to give us any helpful information when she's mad at us, anyway."

#

It was almost dusk, and Greed was still under the tree more than a little impatient. He had clearly given the girl simple directions, hadn't he? If she was able to return so quickly the first time from her quest, why was it taking so long now?

"Maybe the brat's parents won't let her out," he theorized. He looked at the setting sun, then towards the horizon. She had pointed just down the road, and he had enough energy to move now. It make take beating the location out of a few people, but he should be able to retrieve some on his own. Greed stood up and started down the road.

It was not long before he arrived at the "village" Mika described, although clearly the two of them had different interpretations of the word, "village." What he saw were empty houses, their sides scarred by some kind of burn, as if a massive fireball had been sashaying through the place. Although there were not many in sight, he could not ignore the smell of burnt flesh.

Suddenly, Greed's eyes saw that one of the bodies was familiar. He hurried up and found Mika, unconscious, her hand clutching a bag of the red stones. Securing the stones first, he picked her up and felt her forehead. She was blazing with a fever.

Greed looked around. The houses were all desolate, skeletons of the hearths they used to be. The clouds overhead were slowly merging together, overcoming the remaining sunlight. Even so, there had to be someone in this whole crazy place.

"Hello!" Greed yelled out. "Hey, anyone around here?" The small girl in his arms shifted. Surely this place couldn't be totally abandoned, could it? There had to be someone here, didn't there?

"Hey, answer me already!" Greed yelled out. Still nothing. He tried cursing out at the end, but that didn't seem to work any better. Mika was beginning to shiver. He looked down at her in complete annoyance. She just had to go and hang around him and get herself all sick like that. Served her right if she just died right here. So Greed decided. he sat Mika down on the dry ground. She did not seem to notice, but her breathing was still heavy. Her small fists grabbed towards the ground, clenching nothing, but acting as if she was on a mother or father's shoulder. Greed gritted his sharp teeth. He could leave her there easily. He had seen more than enough deaths in his two-hundred year life span not to be upset by it now.

"Make it on your own," he muttered. He opened up the bag he had taken from her and shoved the rest of the stones into her mouth. Once he had consumed them thoroughly, he tossed the bag aside and proceeded toward the road. But he could get no father than that. Someone, Mika's small cough stopped him dead in his tracks.

Huddled back next to the same tree under which Mika had found him, Greed now clutched the small girl close to his chest. Like a scared kitten, she blindly pawed at his warmth, still slightly delirious in her fever. Greed shook his head. At the rate the girl was going, he might as well have just left her there. The clouds overhead were getting ugly through the darkness; he could hear rumbling in the distance. Having nothing better to do, and glancing around to make sure there was no one who could mark this moment and torture him with it later on, Greed pulled Mika in closer to his side, morphing into his shield form. At the very least, the hard carbon repelled water quite well.


	3. Chapter 3

Summary: Greed manages to survive his battle with Ed and how the rest of the FMA story gets messed up from there.

a/n: I am currently posting this story one chapter ahead on my DeviantArt account. See my profile for the link. Also, I may decide to scrap the story on FF when I'm done posting it and leave it exclusively on dA, so if you have an account on both, dA is probably the best place to fav/comment on the story. Thanks!

Chapter 3:

It was a long, but not sleepless night. Mika awoke first; it was her rustling that caused Greed to awaken. The sun was up as if the overnight rain had never existed, but the soaked grass about them told a different story. Greed lifted his hand to feel her forehead. The fever was gone, or had at least receded a bit. For now, she wasn't panning in and out of consciousness. Her curious dark eyes found his slitted pupils and locked on with great intensity. It made him nervous.

"Did you rescue me last night…?" she asked quietly.

Greed scowled at her. "It was hardly rescuing," he muttered. "You were littering the country side. Had to do my part to make the ground pretty-looking, you know?"

For being a small child, she surprisingly did not take the comment as much of an insult. Instead, she straighted herself up (her entire four and a quarter feet just barely above his sitting height) and clasped her hands around his thick neck.

"Thank you, Mister," she said. "I thought I was going to…"

"Yeah, yeah, you owe me your life, you're forever grateful, I get the message," Greed summarized. He stood up quickly so as to deny her the opportunity to continue latching onto him. "Listen, kid, I don't know what hit me last night, but it isn't lasting. Get yourself out of my sight, got it?" She stared blankly at him. She did not move. Did the girl suddenly not understand plain language? "I said go!" he said again, more angered this time.

Mika looked around, distressed and confused. "W-well.. where should I go?"

"I dunno! Anywhere! Go back to your parents or wherever you came from!" Greed snapped back. "It's not any of my business."

To this, Mika did not cry, as he had hoped and expected she would. But rather, she turned her face this way and that in the same confused manner.

"But… my mama and papa are gone…" she said quietly. "I don't think I can go back to them."

Greed scoffed. Although Al could be a nuisance to understand, he could probably assume she meant it literally. Her parents, in fact her whole village, must've been destroyed in the desolation. Like him, she was a wanderer. There was no home for her to go back to.

"When did this happen?" he asked her under his breath.

"A few days ago…" she said.

Please don't start crying on me, Greed begged her in his mind. "Right when you found me?" he asked. She nodded. Suddenly everything seemed to make sense. The burned buildings were not the result of a fire, but of a bunch of stupid humans trying yet again to make a Philosopher's Stone, with red water no doubt. That being the case, Mika was quite lucky that a fever was all she had contracted from carting those stones back and forth. She probably didn't even know that they were what had caused the death of her village.

"Hey," he began. He was going to tell her not to go after the stones anymore, but someone… a familiar voice… interrupted him.

"Greed-san!" Greed looked around. There stood Martel, peering through the nearby bushes. With her combat experience, she made herself blend in almost flawlessly. And now, for one of the few undisciplined times in her life, Martel jumped forward and held onto him. He made a kind a guttural noise in response that was either shock or an ill stomach. Suddenly, she found herself blushing madly and immediately released him.

"I'm sorry," she said, realizing what she had done. "I just… thought no one was left."

By that, Greed confirmed the assumption he had already made. If anyone was left from the nest, Martel would have found them. Martel was the little sister in a group of tough older brothers. Brothers who would steal, maim, or kill if it meant keeping her safe. And of course, she couldn't stand it. She struggled frequently with getting treated like an equal, but even Greed couldn't give her that. If Roa or Dorochet stepped out of line, they might get backhanded, but he couldn't ever raise his fist against a woman. He wondered if he inherited this idiosyncrasy from his past self.

Even so, there was something to be gained from protecting the chimeras. They were his allies, and they were loyal enough to take a death blow or him. Couldn't find help like that just anywhere. And yet when Roa and Dorochet volunteered to stand in front of Lust and Gluttony, he tried to tell them that it wasn't necessary. How stupid was that? If they were only pawns in the end, he shouldn't have hesitated to let them fall. He hated it when he acted sentimental.

And now here he was standing with a small child who could be of no use to him whatsoever, protecting her from everything that threatened her. Clearly, he was losing his mind.

"So, who's this girl?" Martel asked curiously.

Girl? What girl? Greed saw no girl anywhere around. Just to prove his wishful thinking incorrect, however, Mika walked up and tugged on his jacket.

"Mister Greed, I'm hungry," she said quietly, almost as if she felt guilty for being so.

"Hey, do I look like I've got food, kid?" Greed snapped at her. Mika sulked and went back to hiding behind him. Martel glanced back and forth between the two, curious and somewhat amused.

"You're not gonna tell me the kid's a chimera or something like that are you?" she asked.

"Hardly," he muttered back. "She's just some brat who's been following me around lately. Can't get rid of her."

Martel bent down and looked over Mika as she crouched in her hiding spot. "A survivor of that mess I just walked though, I'm guessing," she said. Her small pupils found the girl's large, frightened eyes.

"Hey," Martel said gruffly. "If he calls you a brat again, you just tell me and I'll beat him up, understand?"

At this, Mika giggled. "Okay," she said. Suddenly she had made herself another friend.


	4. Chapter 4

a/n: Short chapter, I know. The 5th one's a bit longer, and there was just no nicer way to cut them. But on the bright side, Roy Mustang is starting to become involved in the plot. (Or maybe for some people that's a bad thing?)

The new character Ellice was created by by MorganR08 over on GaiaOnline. I'm writing a separate fanfic on commission for her, and I had some cool ideas for how the two stories could merge. So, while the plots may seem separate for a bit, I promise they do come together, and that Ellice and Mika are the only OC's in the story.

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 4:

Roy Mustang hated losing face. It was something he went out of his way to avoid. So on a routine evening investigation, when he proudly stepped forward to give his enemy a taste of his namesake flame alchemy, only to have Riza point out that his attack was worthless in the rain, it felt, he hated to admit, outright humiliating.

And with our newest state alchemist standing there watching too, he thought to himself. How much more embarrassed can I make myself?

The bar was quiet tonight, no brawls, no knife fights, no people using public property to show off their amateurish alchemy skills. Roy tried to view that as a positive, but his glumness overwhelmed him. He was supposed to be fighter for position of fuhrer. When had King Bradley needed to call on his subordinates to clean up his mistakes? Never.

"Hey, there, sir. Got a lot on your mind?"

Roy looked up to see state alchemist Ellice leaning against a bar stool, her crimson hair dark with rainwater. Their newest state alchemist showed no lack of fashion. A black sleeveless dress hugged her petite figure, accented by a sharp red belt with a matching cut-off jacket that stopped short at her waist. He had a fleeting thought of what Riza Hawkeye might look like wearing the same outfit and pushed the image away for another time.

Ellice, meanwhile, brushed her bangs aside as they dripped streaks of water down her face.

"If I've observed anything about you in these first few days, Colonel Mustang," she said, "It's that you only come to bars like this when you're seriously worked up."

Mustang tightened his grip on the glass in front of him. He was trying to avoid everyone he knew at the moment; Ellice walking in on his self-pity party wasn't helping.

"I'm fine," he said. "A little frustrated with my own performance, is all." Roy turned away from Ellice's gaze and picked up the glass, sloshing the liquid around. Ellice said nothing. She didn't even move. Mustang shifted uneasily on the bar stool. What was she thinking right now, anyway?

"Are you sitting down, major," he asked. "Or did you just come here to watch me drown my sorrows?" He glanced at her, just for a second, quick enough that he hoped she wouldn't notice. She did notice. She was staring right at him.

"That's actually something I prefer not to watch if I can help it," she said. She leaned over further, her hair almost touching his face. "If you don't mind my saying so, I think there are better ways to get rid of sorrow than your current tactic."

Mustang laughed and plunked the glass down in front of him. "Is that so? Well, then, major, what is your suggestion?"

She smiled and straightened up, the lights from the bar flickering off the surface of her jacket. "Come on," she said. "I'll show you."

#

"So…" said Greed slowly as he walked alongside Martel, who was determined to find Mika something to eat. They'd been walking through the woods for a while, hoping that the next town would have a place they could lay low for a while. Or at least, that it wouldn't have a population that'd been wiped out from disease.

While Greed talked, Martel strode from one bush to another, fingering the branches for any edible fruit.

"What happened to the Full Metal kid?" Greed finally asked. She almost looked insulted that he had brought up the subject.

"He kept following me around until I ditched him," she muttered back. "Seemed determined that you'd killed some helpless old lady or something… these are okay." Here she took out her knife and cut a branch of berries from a nearby bush. She handed them to Mika, who began to nibble happily. A little fruit wasn't going to hold long in the child's stomach, though, and she continued to move forward, looking for something more substantial.

"Helpless old woman, my foot," mumbled Greed. "That witch nearly killed me."

"Who was she, boss?" Martel asked quietly, pausing from her work. Greed glanced back at Mika for a moment before answering.

"Someone from a long time ago…" he finally said.

"The one who sealed you?" At first, Greed was surprised. He'd never said anything about his past to her. Then again, Martel wasn't stupid. Just that fact that he remained silent after her question was enough of an affirmation for her.


End file.
